As we all know, just as the world changes, the Internet also changes. We can now communicate with other people – around the globe – with the touch of a button. We no longer have to wait on phone calls or email. Our world moves very fast.

The way that we keep up with such rapid movement is through online socialization. Believe it or not, when something profound happens in the world, often, it is reported somewhere on the Internet before it is reported on your evening news. Even in cases where it is not reported on the Internet first, it is usually reported quite soon after, and often in greater detail.

We are no longer nameless, faceless users. People are actually participating and interacting online – socializing if you will, and that’s the way that they want it. With the advances that have been made, nobody is willing to allow things to go back to what they once were – where the only people who could be heard on the Internet were those that had the ability to create a website.

Socialization has become an important part of the Internet, and as a business person, you’ve got to learn how to make socialization work for you online. If there was no Internet, wouldn’t you take steps to get out and meet people that would be important to your offline business? Of course you would. You must do this online as well. The good news is that it’s much easier online than it is offline!

Make sure that you have a picture of yourself to post on your profiles. Again, you’ve got to put a human face on it. Many people use very professional pictures, while others use more casual pictures. Ideally, you should use both. Most social networking profiles allow for more than one picture.

Remember that everything you do in the Web 2.0 environment is about building relationships. It isn’t one time contact. It is lifetime contact, preferably. You’ve got to stay on top of it, and ensure that you maintain the relationships that you have worked so hard to build in the online social networking realm.

Online social networking only costs you in terms of time. If you schedule your time appropriately, you can social network online quite successfully. It is just a question of jumping into the fun – and the profit!

Go take a look at any of the social networking sites I talked about – including the blogs and social bookmarking sites. Most have one very distinct thing in common: They are free to use.

Now, as an online business person, you know that it costs money to operate a website. Can you imagine what it costs to manage an entire network? Can you imagine paying for all of the bandwidth that is used on a site such as MySpace? As you probably imagine, it is quite expensive.

Yet MySpace and other sites like it still allow people to set up their profiles, add pictures and videos, and blog - all for free. So, how do they pay for all of this? They sell advertising space. Advertisers pay to have their ads appear on those profile pages and blog pages.

One thing is, always has been, and always will be certain about advertising – if the chosen media for the advertising doesn’t work, advertisers don’t advertise there. Now, go look again at all of those social networking sites, this time paying close attention to the advertisers. The chances are good that you will see some big name brands.

This is how you can take advantage of social networking, without doing a single bit of networking yourself. Simply purchase ad space on the social networking sites.

The amount of money it will cost you to advertise on these sites varies. None of these sites are going to list their advertising rates on their sites. Instead, you simply go to the site, and look for a link that says ‘advertise.’ You will most likely have to fill out a form, and someone will contact you to discuss your needs.

Even though it is likely to be costly, you can expect some great results from your efforts. The important thing is to talk with the sales rep to determine how many sales you will make, and then compare that with the amount of money that you will spend.

Start as small as possible, and even ask the sales rep about test ads. Often, sites such as these have a test rate that is much lower than their regular fees, so that you can get a better sense of the results you can expect.

You will, of course, need creatives. Creatives are text ads and/or banner ads that will be used on the site that you are advertising on. These can be easily and quickly created by a graphical artist through a freelance site, such as Guru.com. The price will be very reasonable as well.

Before you shrug off this idea, consider the fact that these social networking sites are getting millions of visitors each and every month.